AUSTIN, Texas — A viral TikTok claims that professors in the University of Texas System can be jailed for saying the word "racism." But that isn't true.
According to an article from KVUE's media partners at the Austin American-Statesman, the TikTok falsely claims that the UT System is attempting to ban professors from saying the word "racism." But a UT System spokesperson told the Statesman that it is "bogus."
The TikTok that started it all is from a University of Maryland doctorate student and self-titled "anti-racism educator" named Victoria Alexander. Alexander claimed that professors within the UT System could be punished, disciplined, fired, demoted or sent to jail for using the word "racism."
Additionally, Alexander claimed that there is a hotline for people to "tattle" on professors who say the word and to attempt to have the professor sent to jail or fired. Alexander also went on to state that the UT System would be spending $6 million to enforce this ban.
“Throughout history, even in fiction, the people who are sending people to prison for their knowledge, for the truth, they’re not the good guys,” Alexander said in the TikTok.
The Statesman reports that Alexander claims she found out this information from a meeting with a UT System professor – which the system spokesperson said is also not true. The spokesperson said that no employees work directly for the UT System as professors. Instead, they work for institutions within the system, like UT Austin or UT El Paso.
The UT System did announce that any new diversity, equity and inclusion polices would be paused as of last week, but that did not include a ban on the word "racism," the creation of a hotline to report professors who use that word or spending $6 million to enforce the nonexistent ban.
According to the Statesman, Alexander published the video in response to a Florida state law that would limit discussions on race and gender in classrooms called the "STOP Woke Act." The law states that teachers cannot teach that people are "inherently racist, sexist or oppressive" due to their race, color, national origin or sex, but does not ban faculty from saying the word "racism."
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law in 2021 that banned teachers in K-12 schools from teaching that "one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex" or that anyone is "inherently racist, sexist or oppressive" due to their race or sex – but it does not apply to higher education institutions like those in the UT System.
Read the full article from the Austin American-Statesman.